This 1:285 scale pre-built plastic model of a Warhawk is produced by “Catalyst Game Labs” and can be found in the “BattleTech: Clan Fire Star” along with a Kit Fox, Cougar, Fire Moth, and Nova Cat. All the pre-assembled miniatures also come with an assortment of MechWarrior pilot and Alpha Strike cards depicting various colour schemes. But as I plan to use this particular sculpt as a Bloch class French War Walker for an upcoming Weird War Two campaign using some homemade rules, I decided to go with a predominantly pale blue palette.
“Introduced by Clan Smoke Jaguar in 2999”, the 43mm tall figure was initially given a double undercoat of “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey and shaded in “Citadel” Drakenhof Nightshade. It was then dry-brushed using (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey with a softly-bristled make-up blusher brush, and had its cockpit windows ‘picked out’ with the odd dab of “Citadel” Abaddon Black.
I also applied a base layer of “Citadel” Abaddon Black to the Warhawk’s four Extended Range Particle Projector Cannons and LRM-10 Launcher, as well as numerous vents and the odd piece of armour plating. These areas were all later treated to a lick of “Vallejo” Gunmetal and a generous splash of “Citadel” Nuln Oil.
Finally, I stuck some French roundels by “Decal Details” to the mech’s front legs, the Tricolore to the machine’s upper carapace and the name “Boiurgueil” to its hull. These transfers actually took quite a few attempts as I found that they started to disintegrate very quickly in the water if I waited too long for them to detach themselves from their paper.
In addition to my latest Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge entry I have been progressing twenty 15mm scale metal Xenomorphs by “Ground Zero Games”. These are the last of the alien figures I purchased from the company’s Stargrunt Infantry range last year, and have been based on the small, medium and large Flames of War bases produced by “Battlefront Miniatures” to represent different sized packs of Xenomorph XX121.
Lastly, I've managed to get my hands on the 28mm model Natalia, Female Secret Agent by “Reaper Miniatures”. I spotted this striking not-Black Widow figure on Planetmut’s excellent blog “PM Painting”, and thought it would make an excellent proxy for the actress Scarlett Johansson, so the Academy Award nominee could join my other adventurers in their exploits on Gamma World…
Another nice mech there mate, there definitely seem to be more "chicken walker" types in the revised edition. more xeno's too I see, you cant have too many of them though to be honest.
I don't know why but I thought you already had that model of "Black Widow", actually I thought you had just about every model there was of Black Widow! 😁
I seen that one on Matts blog as well as Reaper site a couple of times, I can see I'll have to pick one up myself at some point, it is a lovely sculpt.
Cheers Roger.
I like the colour scheme of the French mech but not the mech itself. One of my least favourite designs to be honest. Lovely painting though.
More aliens! Been a while since I have seen those. Your new Black Widow looks very skinny compared to your previous MCP ones! It will be interesting to compare his she turns out though when done.
Nice looking figure. I'd be interested in hearing more about your Weird War 2 project.
Oh my god I can't believe I inspired someone to shell out on a mini! Hope you have as much fun painting her as I did (no sarcasm, she was fun to paint).
I love the Warhawk, the mini is excellent and the colours you've used give it that WW2 French look. Great job on the Aliens, too, they look great!
Great finish on the mech Simon, you must have quite a few finished Mechs now ! Nice progress on the Xenomorphs, did see Matt's post on the not Black Widow, so can see why you'd want one, but don't you have 2 from Crisis already ?